The Solar Eclipse

MUMBAI (AFP) – Indian astrologers are predicting violence and turmoil across the world as a result of this week's total solar eclipse, which the superstitious and religious view as a sign of potential doom.
But astronomers, scientists and secularists are trying to play down claims of evil portent in connection with Wednesday's natural spectacle, when the moon will come between the Earth and the sun, completely obscuring the sun.
In Hindu mythology, the two demons Rahu and Ketu are said to "swallow" the sun during eclipses, snuffing out its life-giving light and causing food to become inedible and water undrinkable.
Pregnant women are advised to stay indoors to prevent their babies developing birth defects, while prayers, fasting and ritual bathing, particularly in holy rivers, are encouraged.
Shivani Sachdev Gour, a gynaecologist at the Fortis Hospital in New Delhi, said a number of expectant mothers scheduled for caesarian deliveries on July 22 had asked to change the date.
"This is a belief deeply rooted in Indian society. Couples are willing to do anything to ensure that the baby is not born on that day," Gour said.
Astrologers have predicted a rise in communal and regional violence in the days following the eclipse, particularly in India, China and other Southeast Asian nations where it can be seen on Wednesday morning.
Mumbai astrologer Raj Kumar Sharma predicted "some sort of attack by (Kashmiri separatists) Jaish-e-Mohammad or Al-Qaeda on Indian soil" and a devastating natural disaster in Southeast Asia.
An Indian political leader could be killed, he said, and tension between the West and Iran is likely to increase, escalating into possible US military action after September 9, when fiery Saturn moves from Leo into Virgo.
"The last 200 years, whenever Saturn has gone into Virgo there has been either a world war or a mini world war," he told AFP.
It is not just in India that some are uneasy about what will transpire because of the eclipse.
In ancient China they were often associated with disasters, the death of an emperor or other dark events, and similar superstitions persist.
"The probability for unrest or war to take place in years when a solar eclipse happens is 95 percent," announced an article that attracted a lot of hits on the popular Chinese web portal Baidu.com.
Sanal Edamaruku, president of the Indian Rationalist Association, dismissed such doomsday predictions.
"Primarily, what we see with all these soothsayers and astrologers is that they're looking for opportunities to enhance their business with predictions of danger and calamity," he told AFP.
"They have been very powerful in India but over the last decade they have been in systematic decline."
Astronomers and scientists are also working to educate the public about the eclipse.
Travel firm Cox and Kings has chartered a Boeing 737-700 aircraft to give people the chance to see the eclipse from 41,000 feet (12,500 metres).
Experts will be on board to explain it to passengers, some of whom have paid 79,000 rupees (1,600 dollars) for a "sun-side" seat on the three-hour flight from New Delhi.
The eclipse's shadow is expected to pass over the aircraft at 15 times the speed of sound (Mach 15), said Ajay Talwar, president of the SPACE Group of companies that promotes science and astronomy.
"It's coming in the middle of the monsoon season. On the ground, there's a 40 percent chance of seeing it in India. On the aircraft you have almost a 90 percent chance of seeing the eclipse," he added.
Siva Prasad Tata, who runs the Astro Jyoti website, straddles the two worlds.
"There's no need to get too alarmed about the eclipse, they are a natural phenomenon," the astrologer told AFP.
But he added: "During the period of the eclipse, the opposite attracting forces are very, very powerful. From a spiritual point of view, this is a wonderful time to do any type of worship.
"It will bring about good results, much more than on an ordinary day."



Eclipse Altitudes and Azimuths




-The altitude a and azimuth A of the Sun or Moon during an eclipse depend on the time and the observer's geographic coordinates. They are calculated as follows:h = 15 (GST + UT - α ) + λ
a = arcsin [sin δ sin φ + cos δ cos h cos φ]
A = arctan [-(cos δ sin h)/(sin δ cos φ - cos δ cos h sin φ)]
where
h = hour angle of Sun or Moon
a = altitude
A = azimuth
GST = Greenwich Sidereal Time at 0:00 UT
UT = Universal Time
α = right ascension of Sun or Moon
δ = declination of Sun or Moon
λ = observer's longitude (east +, west -)
φ = observer's latitude (north +, south -)
During the eclipses of 2009, the values for GST and the geocentric Right Ascension and Declination of the Sun or the Moon (at greatest eclipse) are as follows:Eclipse Date GST α δ
Annular Solar 2009 Jan 26 8.383 20.592 -18.649
Penumbral Lunar 2009 Feb 09 9.321 9.528 13.527
Penumbral Lunar 2009 Jul 07 19.033 19.136 -23.861
Total Solar 2009 Jul 22 19.999 8.107 20.267
Penumbral Lunar 2009 Aug 06 20.979 21.046 -15.576
Partial Lunar 2009 Dec 31 6.690 6.756 24.020

Lets Talk About Good Friday

Why is it called Good Friday?

>The name may be derived from 'God's Friday' in the same way that good-bye is derived from 'God be with ye'.
It is 'good' because the barrier of sin was broken.

What happened on Good Friday?

>Jesus was arrested and was tried, in a mock trial. He was handed over to the Roman soldiers to be beaten and flogged with whips. A crown of long, sharp thorns was thrust upon his head.
Jesus was forced to carry his own cross outside the city to Skull Hill. He was so weak after the beating that a man named Simon, who was from Cyrene, was pulled from the crowd and forced to carry Jesus' cross the rest of the way.
Jesus was nailed to the cross. Two other criminals were crucified with him, their crosses were on either side of him. A sign above Jesus read "The King of the Jews."

According to the bible:

>The third hour of the day - Jesus was nailed to the cross. (9:00 am )

>The Sixth Hour of the day - darkness covered the land (12:00 noon)

>The ninth hour of the day - the darkness left, and the Lord died ( 3:00 pm).

The hours in the bible are calculated from the first hour of the day, being 6 in the morning.

Christians believe that Jesus stood in our place.

His death paid the penalty not for his own wrong doings but for ours.

What happens on Good Friday today?

>Since the early nineteenth century, before the introduction of bank holiday, Good Friday and Christmas Day were the only two days of leisure which were almost universally granted to working people. Good Friday today is still a public holiday in much of the UK. This means that many businesses are closed.

Fasting

>Some Christians fast (go without food) on Good Friday. This helps them remember the sacrifice Jesus made for them on the day of crucifixion.

Procession

>Some Christians take part in a procession of witness, carrying a cross through the streets and then into church.

Special Church Service

>Many churches hold a special service. This may be a communion service in the evening or a time of prayer during the day, especially around 3 o'clock as that is about the time of day when Jesus died.
Many Churches hold services lasting three hours. They may celebrate the Stations of the Cross, or take part in Passion plays and dramatic readings.
Churches are not decorated on Good Friday. In some churches, pictures and statues are covered over. It is seen as a time of mourning.

When Climate Change>WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Climate change is here to stay. But it is still in our power – as individuals, businesses, cities and governments – to influence just how serious the problem will become.

Whether you are an individual, an organization, a business or a government, there are a number of steps you can take to reduce your carbon emissions, the total of which is described as your carbon footprint. You may think you don’t know where to begin, but by reading this, you have already begun. Indeed, some quite simple ‘no regrets’ measures can more than halve the daily emissions of an individual, with even bigger cuts possible if sectors like power suppliers and automobile makers as well as aviation and appliance manufacturers contributed more to the greening of global lifestyles. Individuals who reduce their energy consumption and thus their climate impact also save money. On a more macro-economic level, economic opportunities arise from measures taken to reduce GHGs: insulating buildings for example will not only save energy costs, but also give the building sector an enormous boost and create employment. While some sectors might suffer increased costs, many will seize the opportunity to innovate and get a step ahead of their competitors in adapting to changed market conditions.

Some low-carbon lifestyle choices at home, in the office and when traveling include:

.Waking up with a traditional wind-up alarm clock rather than the beep of an electronic one - this can save someone almost 48 grams (g) of CO2 each day;
.Choosing to dry clothes on a washing line versus a tumble dryer - a daily carbon diet of 2.3 Kg of CO2;
.Replacing a 45-minute workout on a treadmill with a jog in a nearby park. This saves nearly 1 Kg of the main greenhouse gas;
.Opting for non-electric toothbrush will avoid nearly 48g of CO2 emissions;
.Heating bread rolls in a toaster versus an oven for 15 minutes saves nearly 170g of CO2;
.Switching from regular 60-Watt light bulbs to energy-saving ones will produce four times less greenhouse gas emissions;
.Taking the train rather than the car for a daily office commute of as little as 8 km will save a big 1.7 Kg of CO2;
.Shutting down your computer and flat screen both during lunch break and after working hours will cut CO2 emissions generated by these appliances by one-third;
.Investing in a water-saving shower head will not only save 10 liters of water per minute, but will also slash CO2 emissions resulting from a three-minute hot shower by half;
.Reducing the weight of goods and items carried onboard by airline passengers to below 20Kg could cut global GHG emissions by two million tonnes of CO2 a year.

Global warming leaving its mark on polar bears

Potentially fatal to the polar bear, global warming has already left its mark on the species with smaller, less robust bears that are increasingly showing cannibalistic tendencies.
Top experts who gathered this week in Tromsoe in northern Norway to discuss ways of protecting the species sounded alarm bells over the dramatic consequences of the melting ice.
“We don’t have hard evidence about climate change but we have evidence about the numerous symptoms of climate change on polar bears,” Andrew Derocher, chair of the Polar Bear Specialist Group, an international network of researchers, said.
The primary observation is that as the sea ice shrinks away, so are the polar bears — they’re not growing as big as they used to.
In Canada’s Hudson Bay, home to a large polar bear population, the ice season is now three weeks shorter than it was 30 years ago, chipping away at the bears’ opportunity to hunt seals, their primary source of food and an essential source of fat needed for their long summer fast.
Females today weigh around 230 kilos (500 pounds), some 65 kilos less than in 1980, and measure about 185 centimetres (6.07 feet) on average, compared to around 220 centimetres a few decades ago.
The melting ice means not only shorter hunting seasons, but it also means the bears, who number some 20,000 to 25,000 worldwide, have to cross greater distances to reach their icy hunting grounds.
This has led to a deterioration of the bears’ health, impacting their reproductive capacities and the cubs’ chances of survival, experts warned.
“The chain of events starts with a drop in body condition that subsequently leads to a drop in reproduction which leads to a drop in survival,” Derocher said.
Climate change also appears to have altered the bears’ behavioural patterns.
Several recent incidents of cannibalism in Alaska have observers worried.
“We knew of polar bears killing and eating other polar bears,” Steven Amstrup, a research wildlife biologist with the US Geological Survey, told AFP.
“But the difference was that this time the polar bears were clearly deliberately hunting other bears, attacking for example females in their denning area” in northern Alaska, he said.
“We assume that it was linked to nutritional stress.”
Faced with the growing uncertainty concerning the ice, pregnant polar bears are increasingly denning on land, researchers have noticed.
In northern Alaska, two-thirds of bears now choose to den on land in order to give birth early in the year, an inverse proportion of what was observed a few years ago.
“They are refugees rather than immigrants. This is not a chosen exile, this is a forced exile,” Derocher told AFP.
The shrinking sea ice is also sometimes forcing the bears to swim ever further afield, encountering more treacherous waters.
Polar bears are accomplished swimmers — their Latin name is ursus maritimus — yet in late 2004, four polar bears were found dead after drowning in the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska, likely the victims of a heavy sea.
According to scientists’ estimates, some 25 polar bears may have died in that incident.
“Any of these symptoms taken alone might not be so worrying but seen in their totality it shows a bleak picture of how climate change is impacting polar bears already now,” said Geoff York, a polar bear expert at environmental group WWF.Potentially fatal to the polar bear, global warming has already left its mark on the species with smaller, less robust bears that are increasingly showing cannibalistic tendencies.
Top experts who gathered this week in Tromsoe in northern Norway to discuss ways of protecting the species sounded alarm bells over the dramatic consequences of the melting ice.
“We don’t have hard evidence about climate change but we have evidence about the numerous symptoms of climate change on polar bears,” Andrew Derocher, chair of the Polar Bear Specialist Group, an international network of researchers, said.
The primary observation is that as the sea ice shrinks away, so are the polar bears — they’re not growing as big as they used to.
In Canada’s Hudson Bay, home to a large polar bear population, the ice season is now three weeks shorter than it was 30 years ago, chipping away at the bears’ opportunity to hunt seals, their primary source of food and an essential source of fat needed for their long summer fast.
Females today weigh around 230 kilos (500 pounds), some 65 kilos less than in 1980, and measure about 185 centimetres (6.07 feet) on average, compared to around 220 centimetres a few decades ago.
The melting ice means not only shorter hunting seasons, but it also means the bears, who number some 20,000 to 25,000 worldwide, have to cross greater distances to reach their icy hunting grounds.
This has led to a deterioration of the bears’ health, impacting their reproductive capacities and the cubs’ chances of survival, experts warned.
“The chain of events starts with a drop in body condition that subsequently leads to a drop in reproduction which leads to a drop in survival,” Derocher said.
Climate change also appears to have altered the bears’ behavioural patterns.
Several recent incidents of cannibalism in Alaska have observers worried.
“We knew of polar bears killing and eating other polar bears,” Steven Amstrup, a research wildlife biologist with the US Geological Survey, told AFP.
“But the difference was that this time the polar bears were clearly deliberately hunting other bears, attacking for example females in their denning area” in northern Alaska, he said.
“We assume that it was linked to nutritional stress.”
Faced with the growing uncertainty concerning the ice, pregnant polar bears are increasingly denning on land, researchers have noticed.
In northern Alaska, two-thirds of bears now choose to den on land in order to give birth early in the year, an inverse proportion of what was observed a few years ago.
“They are refugees rather than immigrants. This is not a chosen exile, this is a forced exile,” Derocher told AFP.
The shrinking sea ice is also sometimes forcing the bears to swim ever further afield, encountering more treacherous waters.
Polar bears are accomplished swimmers — their Latin name is ursus maritimus — yet in late 2004, four polar bears were found dead after drowning in the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska, likely the victims of a heavy sea.
According to scientists’ estimates, some 25 polar bears may have died in that incident.
“Any of these symptoms taken alone might not be so worrying but seen in their totality it shows a bleak picture of how climate change is impacting polar bears already now,” said Geoff York, a polar bear expert at environmental group WWF.